European report recommends e-mail encryption

12.00 pm

BRUSSELS - A European Parliament report has concluded there is no concrete evidence that the US-led spying system known as Echelon has been used in commercial espionage against European companies.

"It has frequently been maintained that Echelon has been used this way (commercial espionage), but no such case has been sustained," the EU assembly said in a draft report.

The final version will be issued later this week.

The Echelon system of satellites and listening posts, originally set up during the Cold War, involves EU member Britain as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Its main aim is to intercept satellite communications, including e-mails.

The European Parliament launched an investigation last year after allegations that US companies had gained competitive advantages over European rivals as a result of access to information gathered via the network.

The United States and Britain have previously denied all charges of industrial espionage.

The parliament's report also said the scope of the spying network was not as extensive as first believed.

"The surveillance system depends upon worldwide interception of satellite communications. However...only a small proportion of those communications are transmitted by satellite," it said.

"This means that the majority of communications cannot be intercepted."

It said Echelon's main purpose was to "intercept private and commercial communications", which nearly all intelligence services use to compile economic data, commodity market trends and to monitor whether trade embargoes are being respected.

Despite no concrete evidence that Echelon has been used for economic espionage, the report called on EU member states and companies to work together against industrial spying.

"Firms are called upon to cooperate more closely with counter-espionage services, and particularly to inform them of attacks...of industrial espionage, in order to improve the services' efficiency," it said.

It also called on European citizens to be vigilant against the interception of private communications such as e-mails and encouraged the use of encryption as a means of protection.

- REUTERS